The invention relates to a tiltable converter which is borne by means of supporting elements, accommodating support and tilting forces, on a carrying ring of preferably box-shaped profile. The carrying ring is provided with two carrying trunnions arranged opposite each other. Axially movable carrying disks assigned to the carrying trunnions engage in bearing eyes secured to the converter shell.
From Austrian Pat. No. 271,527 annular bearing eyes as supporting elements for a converter connected to the converter shell are known. Into these bearing eyes there project carrying disks connected with the carrying ring. In Austrian Pat. No. 293,456 there is described an embodiment of this carrying-disk-suspension for converter exchange vessels. These are converters that are not relined in the blowing stand of the steel works, but in a proper lining stand, so that in the blowing stand a converter ready for operation is constantly available. It is therefore important that converter exchange vessels should be capable of being easily mounted into and removed from the carrying ring surrounding them without careful adjustment work and complicated manipulations being necessary.
In the construction according to Austrian Pat. No. 293,456 relatively large recesses are provided in the carrying ring at that point of the carrying ring which is subject to the heaviest wear, i.e. where the support forces are being introduced, so that for removing the converter the carrying disks may be retracted from the bearing eyes secured to the converter shell into these recesses. The converter vessel may then be lowered in the vertical direction through the carrying ring and may be removed from the blowing stand using an appropriate lifting and transporting device. It is the essence of the carrying-disk suspension that the carrying disks which engage with play in the corresponding bearing eyes should be as large as possible and that the support surface should be as broad as possible. Another requirement that converter plants of this type have to meet consists in that the carrying ring which, as a rule, has a box-shaped profile, should be constructed as light as possible. Moreover, the profile of the carrying ring should be shaped as evenly as possible all around. Large recesses are therefore disadvantageous and require special constructional and productional measures that raise the production costs and increase the weight of the carrying ring. Finally, in the construction of the converter and the carrying ring, special attention has to be paid to the problem of assuring that as a consequence of a differential heating of the converter shell and the carrying ring during operation, or within one converter journey, these constructional elements are sufficiently movable in the radial direction, and that too large a distance between the carrying bearings of the converter or between its carrying trunnions is not required. The disk suspension solution is applicable only for hollow trunnions and in cases involving a potential supply of a cooling medium (e.g. in case of a water-cooled carrying ring) additional and complicated constructional measures are necessary.